We hear it’s getting
hotter, our eyes that look
to the atmosphere alight;
our star's becoming brighter
we surmise, though it isn’t even
half-an-inch
closer than before. We can’t see
the carbon filling
skies like lungs with smoke.
There was a time
the fires were small:
to cook a trout,
to keep from
being cold
in the coal of
night. Now, B.C.
is ablaze, and another
starlet’s mansion
is consumed.
It could be worse, you say—
we could be pilgrims
doing circles
down in Mecca,
robed from head to foot,
or roofers hauling shingles
in our sweat,
the streams of which
taste bitter
when blinding sun
and sorrow are the same,
brothers of another
mother,
when all beneath the surface
comes to burn—water then coral
then fish—
when all around us
swirls like a malted
shake, loosened
in the melt,
frothing like a madman
in the clouds, a wave that’s
run amok
and drowning millions.
Andreas Gripp
June 22, 2024
RF Image
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